The cold of war: when winter completes what the bombing started

The cries of Gaza’s shivering children should compel the world to act immediately as winter temperatures plummet. Furthermore, winter deaths — the new silent killer of Gaza — despite being preventable are rising rapidly. As war-battered homes also collapsing at an alarming rate, Gazans have nowhere to turn.

The silent killer

In a single day, eight Palestinians lost their lives. Among them were a 14-year-old child and an infant barely past his first birthday. Elderly individuals living in tents offering no protection from strong winds or torrential rain were also among the dead. In contrast with explosions, death came quietly, but has been no less cruel.

A young boy from Gaza told the Canary that:

We used to love winter… [but] now we hate it.

The people of Gaza, particularly defenceless children, as the boy expresses, now fear the clouds as much as they fear warplanes.

Crumbling infrastructure threatens lives

The merciless winter in Gaza is punishing survivors of Israel’s genocide. This crisis is weaponised by the coloniser to exact revenge since the war began.

The tents of the displaced, intended as temporary spaces of refuge, have become death traps. Sadly, they offer no shelter or protection from howling winds.

The walls of dwellings and homes people are returning to, weakened by bombing, are collapsing like a house of cards under the force of these winds.

Earlier this week, medics reported that five people that had sought refuge in temporary shelters were killed after their homes collapsed.

Raging rainstorms

Gaza has also been struck by severe rainstorms. In flood-prone areas, strong winds tore down makeshift tents, and rain flooded what remained. Newborns and other vulnerable groups, including those living with disability and the elderly, are at most risk.

There is certainly no ‘off’ switch for severe winter conditions, yet the strategies to mitigate them are blocked by Israel. Moreover, the siege  continues to deprive the population of life-saving supplies such as tents, heating, winter clothes, sandbags, and food assistance.

Children whose lives were cut short by hypothermia did not need a miracle to survive. They simply needed warmth. The woman whose home collapsed with her inside was not a casualty of the battlefield — she died in a place meant to protect her.

Preventable deaths

Medical professionals, including former director of Gaza’s Al-Awda hospital, Ahmad Mahna, has criticised these deaths as preventable. In addition, the winter storms have devastated the encampments of Bir al-Naaja, Jabalia refugee camp, and Al-Rimal. These locations, in the words of Amnesty International, have:

inflicted further misery on an already traumatised population and compounded the suffering of Palestinians still reeling from two years of relentless bombardment and forced displacement.

The question remains: why, in a world of preventable deaths, is the international community standing idly by as hundreds more are killed, not by munitions but by the rain and bitter cold?

Featured image via the Canary